Five People Who Found Out About Nick and Greg
by Aebhel
Summary: Exactly what the title sounds like. Five co-workers who found out that Nick and Greg are sleeping together. Slash, obviously.
1. Social Lives, or the Lack Thereof

Sara's feeling unaccountably sociable when Greg drops into the chair opposite her with a giant mug of coffee. "Hey."

"She talks!" He clutches his chest melodramatically, then grins at her over the rim of his mug.

Sara shakes her head and smiles back. "I've been pretty miserable company lately, haven't I?"

"I wasn't going to say anything, but...yes. Yes, you have. Absolutely miserable. Soul-destroying, in point of fact."

"I'm sorry."

"The dead bodies were more cheerful than you. Even that decapitated hit-and-run victim."

"Getting less sorry, though."

"I have that effect on people, I've found. To what do I owe the honor of your conversation?"

She wants to say something flippant, but something stops her, and she finds herself telling the truth. "Just sick of feeling lousy all the time, I guess."

"I'll drink to that." He raises his coffee mug and she clinks her own against it.

"On that note, Catherine and I are going out for a few drinks after her shift's up."

Greg raises his eyebrows. She's been feuding with Catherine about overtime for the past week, and it looks as though word's gotten around. The thought makes her feel guilty. Immature. The fact that she's capable of feeling immature in front of Greg, who hides his porn magazines where she's bound to find them when she goes looking for swabs to re-stock her kit, is pretty sad. "That sounds like fun," he says at last, in a tone that suggests the exact opposite.

"Yeah. You want to come with, run interference?"

"Ah, Sara." He sighs, dramatically. "Much as it pains me to shatter your hopes, I must inform you that my heart--and my evening--belong to another."

"Wouldn't it be more like late morning?"

Greg waves a hand. "Semantics."

"I'm just wondering who you got to go on a date in the middle of a workday. Unless she works the night shift--Greg, do you have a girlfriend?"

He grins, sips his coffee. "I have no comment. I am comment-less."

"You _do._ And it's someone from the labs, isn't it? Look at you, you're blushing," because he is, blushing and grinning smugly. She laughs, a real laugh for the first time in ages. "Come on, spill. Who is she?"

"My lips are sealed."

"If only that were true," Nick remarks, coming into the room. He rummages around in the fridge for a minute before withdrawing in disgust. "I thought we agreed that Grissom wasn't allowed to put his experiments in here anymore."

"Nick," Sara says."Greg has a girlfriend."

He turns, leans against the counter with a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "That so?"

"Sara's taking her romantic frustrations out on me," Greg says with great dignity.

"That's not very nice."

"He won't tell me who she is." Sara decides to let the 'romantic frustrations' comment slide. For now.

For some reason, that makes Nick's faint smile curve into a wide grin. "No?"

"No. Do you know?"

He shakes his head, and she can tell that he's suppressing laughter.

"I think she's jealous," Greg says in a stage whisper.

And that's Nick's cue to say something lighthearted and rude, but he doesn't speak. The rhythm of the conversation is thrown off, and Sara looks up. They're staring at each other, Greg flushed and grinning like he knows a brilliant secret. Nick's still smiling, but it's warmer now. Intimate.

Intimate.

Sara can almost feel her mind stutter as this new reality slides into place. This reality of Nick and Greg standing in the break room and looking at each other like they're in bed together. Jesus. Not a girlfriend.

And then Nick cocks his head and tells Greg that he's projecting, and the banter is on again. Sara's not really listening. She laughs and nods and interjects snide comments at the appropriate moments, but it feels like her skin is stinging with sudden knowledge, both bitter and sweet.


	2. For Comfort

Catherine runs her hands through her hair and wishes that she still smoked. She could really use a cigarette right now.

It's been a hell of a night. A hell of a night, and a hell of a case. Nick's with the little boy now, waiting in Grissom's office for Child Services to show up. Through the window, she can see him hunkered down next to the kid, who's examining something slimy and dead suspended in formaldehyde with apparent delight. Nick's smiling, but the line of his shoulders is tense and angry.

He's good with kids, even without having any of his own. Must be all those nieces and nephews. The little boy was timid and frightened when they brought him out of the hotel room, but now he's laughing, tapping the glass jar with his fingers and looking up pelt Nick with questions.

Caleb Jenfry. He's ten.

Grissom tells Nick to stay with him while they do the interrogation. Catherine doesn't know if it's coincidence or one of Grissom's sporadic flashes of social acuity, but either way, she's grateful. By the time they're done with the interview she's even more grateful, because she's itching to strangle the bitch herself and she doesn't like to think what Nick might have done if he was in the room.

That bitch. That _fucking_ bitch. His teacher. His fucking _teacher_, and it isn't enough. She's going to be in jail for the next fifteen years at least, and it isn't fucking enough. Catherine almost has to sit on her hands to keep from clawing the woman's eyes out, and maybe Grissom knows that, because he tells her to go see if Child Services has shown up yet.

Actually, what he tells her is to go see how Nick's doing. She's not going to ask about that, because that would mean asking how much he knows, and that would almost certainly mean giving away what she knows. Socially inept as he can be, Grissom is frighteningly good at getting people to spill their guts.

The girl at the front desk tells her that Child Services has come and gone, but she doesn't have any idea where Nick is. Catherine tries the break room, the cubicle he shares with Warrick, and then, for some reason she can't fully explain to herself, the labs.

She finds him in the locker room, sitting on one of the benches. Just sitting, hunched over, head in his hands. He isn't shaking or crying, and she thinks it might be easier, if he was, to approach him. Except for his hands, which are clenching convulsively in his own hair, he's unnaturally still. She hesitates at the end of the row, unable to walk away but equally unable to move closer, and she's still frozen there when Greg brushes past her without even looking, moving purposefully.

At first, she thinks he hasn't even seen Nick there, and she throws out a hand to stop him. Greg's not tactful even at the best of times, and Nick's as tightly wound as she's ever seen him. If Greg makes some kind of crack, she really thinks Nick might punch him.

Greg doesn't make a crack. He stops behind Nick, hesitates, sighs, and touches the back of his neck. "Hey."

Even from where she stands, she can see the tension coil out of Nick's frame. He runs his hands through his hair, then drops them, still staring at the floor between his knees. "Hey."

"I heard about the kidnapping."

A shudder runs over Nick's body, but when he speaks, he just sounds tired. "Yeah. We got that--"

"--bitch," Greg finishes. He sounds uncharacteristically venomous. "Some fucking people--"

"Yeah."

"How old is he?"

"Ten." When Nick slams his fist into the bench beside him, Catherine jumps back. Greg doesn't even flinch. He straddles the bench and reaches across to take Nick's hand, running his thumb over the knuckles.

"Keep that up and you're going to break your hand. You want to talk about it?"

"No. Man, I just--" Nick sighs. "Sometimes I just cannot believe the things people do to each other."

"I know." Greg's voice is lower. Tender. "Hey. I know." Without letting go of Nick's hand, he reaches around to pull the other man into an embrace. The angle looks awkward, but Nick sighs again and sags into Greg's arms like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

Catherine blinks. Finally gets it.

Greg presses his cheek against the top of Nick's head, then looks up to meet her eyes. She starts. Until just now, she wasn't sure he even realized she was standing there. The expression on his face is fierce; a little scared, a lot defiant.

Smiling a little, she holds up her hands, mouths,_ he's all yours,_ and has just long enough to see the startled gratitude on Greg's face before she gets the hell out of there.

Grissom corners her in the hallway later that night and asks if she talked to Nick. She can't help but smile.


	3. Down Time

Warrick shoves his hands in his back pockets, surveying the room. It's just a bar, like any other bar. Pool tables, dart boards, rock music on the radio, the obligatory slot machines blinking along the back wall. Not a scrap of latex or leather or eight-inch heels in sight. If it weren't for the rainbow flag tacked to one wall next to a row of mirrors, he wouldn't even know.

"So. This is what a gay bar looks like," he remarks.

Catherine snorts as she walks past him. "You've seriously never even been inside a gay bar."

"You implying something?"

She rolls her eyes. She's drawing stares here as much as she does anywhere else, and it doesn't seem to bother her a bit. Warrick wishes he could be as cool. "I'm implying that this is Vegas. Everybody tries everything once."

"Not me." Then the rest of her statement hits him. "Wait, are you saying that you--?"

Catherine tosses a grin over her shoulder as she winds her way through the crowd toward the bar. Warrick shakes his head and whistles low, under his breath.

The bartender says that the guy they need to talk to is here somewhere, but he doesn't get any more specific than that. The place is local, off the Strip and not nearly as crowded as the tourist traps, but it's still a Saturday night. There are at least two hundred people in here, which means that they get to work the crowd.

Great.

Catherine doesn't seem bothered at all, but he guesses that after being an exotic dancer, a place like this isn't really that freaky. It's really not freaky, and he doesn't have a good reason to be freaked out--he's got his tac vest on and nobody's so much as looked slantways at him--but he is anyway.

He's talking to a pretty girl with fire-engine-red hair and wishing there was any point in flirting with her when something makes him look over at the pool tables. Later he can't even say what catches his eye. A trick of the light, a sudden movement, maybe just the disco ball reflecting off the mirror. Something.

And that's when he sees the dark-haired man leaning over to set the rack on the table nearest the mirrors. The guy's back is to him, but that doesn't matter; posture and movement are just as distinctive as faces, when you know a person well enough. Warrick steps away from the redhead, brow furrowing, staring. Trying to get a better look without being too obvious.

"Found our guy," Catherine says in his ear, and he jumps. She gives him a quizzical look. "You see something?"

Suddenly, he doesn't want her to know. Doesn't want to know himself. "I thought I saw someone I knew, but--"

He wants to take her arm, steer her away, go talk to the guy who (might have) witnessed the beating of a nineteen-year-old college kid up at the campus, but it's too late because she's already peering over. Warrick follows her gaze involuntarily, and the pool player chooses that moment to turn, laughing, to face someone they can't see. It's Nick.

"Shit," Catherine says in a low voice.

"Maybe it's just--" Warrick begins, then stops. What, a mistake? How do you end up in a gay bar by mistake? And it isn't just a place to hang out and play pool with some buddies, either, because Warrick remembers talking to Nick yesterday morning, right after their shift. He was jealous, he remembers. It's rare to get a Saturday night off. A treat.

_"You got a hot date?"_

_Nick grinned, ducked his head, closing his locker door. "What makes you think that?"_

_"Man, it's a Saturday night and you're not working the graveyard. You got to have a hot date. If you don't have one, go find one. My girl's got this friend who loves Southern boys--"_

_Nick was laughing outright now. "No, man, that's okay. I got plans."_

A hot date. Jesus. Warrick feels like his brain is turning inside-out. Is it that guy? That other one? The blond football-player type or the one with glasses or--

As far as he can see, it's none of them. The blond guy has a hand on Nick's shoulder and they're obviously friendly, but it doesn't look like--that. Nick doesn't look any different than he does when he's talking to Warrick. But how would he know? He didn't even know Nick is--

"Warrick," Catherine hisses. "Warrick, let's go."

"Just hang on a minute," he says absently.

"This is wrong." Her voice is unexpectedly fierce, and he looks at her, startled. "If he wanted us to know, he'd have told us."

"You know," he realizes. She looks away. "You knew he was--you know who he's here with. Don't you."

"It was an accident that I found out." She pushes her hair out of her eyes. "He doesn't even know that I know. And it's none of my business--or yours. Let's just do our jobs, okay?"

Warrick opens his mouth, but before he can get a word out he hears another familiar voice nearby, cutting easily through the crowd noise.

"Excuse me, coming through, get out of the way, that's a seven dollar beer and if you don't move you'll be wearing it _and_ paying for it--"

"No way," Warrick mutters, just as Sanders breaks through the crowd next to the tables. Greg Sanders. DNA Greg Sanders. Greg Sanders of the terrible shirts and the hidden pornos and the constant flirting with every female in sight. His hair is somewhat tamed with gel and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt that isn't entirely horrifying. And no doubt about who he's here with, either, because he goes straight over to Nick's table, sets the glasses down, and puts one palm on the back of Nick's neck just as the other man is lining up his shot.

Nick jumps about a mile in the air, turns, laughs. His face is soft in a way that Warrick doesn't think he's ever seen before, and he feels like the worst kind of voyeur, but he also can't seem to look away. Over the noise of the crowd, he can just hear what they're saying.

"Your hands are frozen."

Greg grins, leans over the table, surveying the game. "Sorry."

"And you screwed up my shot."

"But I bought you a beer. A good beer. Microbrew." Greg proudly displays the beer in question.

"I told you, I'm never going to start liking that crap."

"Yeah, but it cost me seven dollars and you're going to feel bad if you don't at least try it."

Nick laughs, accepts the beer, drinks. Without setting it down, he curls his other hand around Greg's neck and kisses him on the mouth. Warrick flinches. There are guys kissing all over the place in here, but somehow this is different. It's a comfortable kiss, familiar. This isn't, he realizes, a first for either of them.

When they break apart, Greg is grinning like a maniac. "So you liked it?"

Nick ruffles his hair, leaving it even more disheveled than usual. "No."

Catherine grabs Warrick's arm, firmly, and he blinks at her. The expression on her face is uncompromising. "We have a job to do, Warrick. Let's go do it."

"I--" he trails off. She's right. Unless he's planning to stay here and spy on the pair of them all night, there's nothing more to see here. "Cool. Let's go."

* * *

He still can't get his head around it by the time he has to go in to work the next afternoon. It makes him feel vaguely ashamed--like he's got a problem with gay guys. Which he doesn't. Or at least, he didn't think he did, but it still eats at him.

Nick. Gay. Jesus, how did he not _notice?_ Sanders isn't that surprising, really. Guy's more than a little on the wild side, and while Warrick didn't know he dabbled, it's not that much of a shock. But Nick's like--as white-bread as you can possibly get. He was in a frat, for Christ's sake. He's an ex-cop from Texas who likes football and cheap beer.

And hyperactive, filthy-mouthed lab-rats. Men.

An hour into his shift and he still hasn't seen Nick. Grissom's got him finishing up on a liquor-store robbery across town, and Warrick feels a little guilty that he's relieved.

At least until his pager goes off and he realizes that he's going to have to go down to the labs to pick up the samples Catherine dropped off before she left at ten. He takes a second to tell himself that he's being a jackass, then heads down. It's not like he even knows Greg all that well, or would care that he fucked guys if the guy he's currently fucking didn't happen to be Warrick's best friend.

Greg's bopping around the lab to Black Flag, drumming his palms on the countertops in time to the beat. He grins at Warrick when he comes in, and there's something that looks suspiciously like a hickey just above the collar of his shirt.

"You got my samples?" Warrick yells over the music.

"What?" It doesn't seem to occur to Greg to turn the music down, but that's nothing new. "Oh, yeah, Catherine dropped them off."

Warrick opens his mouth to shout something back, but just then Grissom stomps into the room, glares at the pair of them, turns the boombox off, and stomps out.

"He really needs to get laid," Greg remarks cheerfully.

Warrick snorts, because it's both true and _so_ not something he wants to be thinking about. "What have you got for me?"

"Epithelials from under your vic's fingernails are from an unidentified female. No hits in CODIS. Shirt tested positive for GSR, which means that--

"--he was standing right next to the gun when it went off," Warrick finishes. "Cool. Thanks, man."

"No problemo." Greg turns the music back on, although he keeps the volume a little lower, and starts drumming the countertops again. "I live to serve."

"Right." Warrick hesitates. Greg glances over at him, eyebrows raised inquiringly, and what's he supposed to say, _hey, I just found out last night that you're gay and also sleeping with my best friend, and I just want you to know I'm totally cool with that?_

"Right," he says again, and gets the hell out of there.

Of course, when he gets back up to Grissom's office, Nick's there. Warrick hesitates in the door for several long moments before Grissom, who doesn't look as though his mood has improved, gestures impatiently for him to come in.

"There's been a shooting," he says without preamble. "Convenience store out on I-15, multiple victims. Anonymous caller dialed it in. I want you two keeping your eyes open on this one, okay?"

"Sure," Nick says, and turns, grinning, to thump Warrick on the shoulder. Warrick flinches a little, involuntarily, but he doesn't think Nick notices.

Grissom narrows his eyes. "And if I hear about any wagering, I'm sticking you both on that explosion at the sewage treatment facility."

Nick raises his eyebrows. "Who's got it now?"

"Dayshift. I'm sure Ecklie would be only too happy for the help."

"I'm hurt that you feel like you have to threaten me." He slants a grin at Warrick.

It takes him moment too long to respond. "Yeah. Hurt."

And this time Nick does notice the hesitation. Out of the corner of his eye, Warrick can see his face crease, confused.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He doesn't have a problem with this. He _doesn't._ But he still can't think of a single thing to say as they pack up and head out. In the car, Nick puts on the radio, and Warrick hardly remembers to bitch about the country. He keeps shooting glances at Nick out of the corner of his eyes, though he doesn't know what he's expecting to see.

Finally, about ten minutes out, Nick reaches out and turns the music down. "Okay, what the hell, man?"

"What?"

"You've been weird all shift. Is something going on with your lady?"

God. That's what he thinks this is about? "No," Warrick says slowly. "Nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing, man. It's no big deal."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Nick sighs. "Because you've been looking at me like I just grew an extra head. It's kinda starting to get on my nerves."

He sounds so normal. Suddenly Warrick wants to laugh, because what the hell was he expecting? It's still Nick. Driving with one hand, squinting even though it's dark, and glancing over like he's concerned that Warrick's maybe lost his mind. Just Nick.

"It's nothing," Warrick says again, and this time he means it. "Just been a weird shift, is all."

Nick doesn't look entirely convinced, but he doesn't push it. "If you say so."

"I say so." Smiling, shaking his head, Warrick changes the radio station and turns it up until the pounding hip-hop beat fills the Denali. "Your music sucks, though."

Nick puts his head back and laughs.


	4. Observations

He doesn't really consider his eavesdropping a bad habit, although he's aware that there are some people--and Nick, understandably, is almost certainly one of them--who would probably disagree. After his surgery, he does it almost without meaning to. The whole world seems suddenly so loud again, sounds sharp and bright, conversations that are none of his business pressing into his ears without any real effort on his part. That's how he first finds out. He's just walking down the hall, and it's not his fault that the door is open and neither of them notice him.

"...working another double," Nick is saying from inside the DNA lab. "I'm sorry, Greggo. I can't get out of it."

Greg sighs. "Figures. No, it's okay. Go do your superhero thing; you know where to find me when you get done."

"Yeah. I really am--"

"It's okay. Seriously." Greg puts his hand out, touches the inside of Nick's elbow, and Gil blinks. The contact is brief, but significant.

Nick ducks his head and smiles, then steps back. "I'll see you around," he says, and heads out into the hall. Gil steps back, cocks his head, and watches Nick walk away.

Interesting.

* * *

He doesn't say anything. It makes him happy, in a wistful sort of way, to see them and besides, he's curious to see how long they can keep it under wraps.

They do better than he expects. Greg doesn't seem like the sort to just sit on something like that and Nick--he's beginning to get the idea that Nick's much better at keeping secrets than he would have expected. It makes him wonder what else Nick keeps locked up inside his head, but he doesn't ask.

* * *

Catherine tells him he needs to get a hobby, and she's probably right. Curiosity is an old habit, though, and it gets him through the slow shifts. He used to watch Sara, but that's dangerous now. He's a moth to her flame, and that's a battle with temptation that's hard enough on its own.

They seem happy. It doesn't affect their work, but he's still careful not to put them in the field alone together when he can avoid it. No need to tempt fate.

* * *

A year passes, and then another. Catherine knows. He catches her watching with a motherly, indulgent smile when they show up a few minutes late one shift, freshly showered and wearing identical guilty expressions.

Gil lectures them both, separately, and pretends to believe both of their stories about setting the alarm clock wrong.

* * *

And then there's Sara, and his life is finally full enough that he stops paying so much attention to Nick and Greg. They're still together, he thinks, although his only real clue is the occasional careless touch, the way they stand too close when they don't think anyone is watching. It's only now that he's trying to keep an office romance under wraps that he fully understands just how much work it is.

* * *

It's a few weeks after the beating that he finds out they're living together, and that's only because he decides to stop over and see how Greg's doing in person.

An old Norwegian woman answers the door, and after a conversation consisting mostly vague muttering on her part and not-so-vague hand-waving on Gil's part, she directs him to the manager's apartment, which is conveniently just across the hall.

"Greg?" the manager says in a surprised tone when Gil asks. "Sweet boy. He moved out--oh, six months ago. Sublets the place to old Svana. I guess he rents a house across town with a friend now."

"Of course," Gil says. "Thank you."

When he looks up Greg's file later that night, he isn't that surprised to find that the contact information hasn't been updated. Not that it really matters. He knows where Nick lives, after all, so it's not like it'll be a problem to get in touch with Greg.

* * *

"Man," Nick says, stretching his hands out in front of him and rotating his wrists until the joints pop, "I am wiped. I think I'm getting old."

Catherine smacks the back of his head on her way out of the room, and he laughs. Gil shakes his head, smiling, and opens his own locker.

"Did you see that, Grissom? That was assault, right there."

"If you feel the need to provoke Catherine, you're on your own, Nicky."

"I get no sympathy around here," Nick says mournfully. He finishes lacing up his boots and stands up, pulling a windbreaker on. "See you tomorrow, Gris."

Gil nods absently, then remembers something. "Nick?" he says, and Nick turns. "When you get home, tell Greg to locate his cell phone and call me. I've been trying to reach him for the past hour."

"I--" And then Nick pauses, face going blank as Gil's words process. He tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling, blowing out a long breath, then laughs suddenly. "Shoulda figured. How long have you known?"

Gil smiles a little and shrugs. "I didn't," he admits. "Not for sure, anyway, until just now."

"But--"

"But I suspected, yes. Greg sublet his apartment a year ago and moved in with you. It could have been just to split the bills, but if that were the case, you wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to keep it a secret."

Nick runs a hand through his hair, looking sheepish. "And we thought we were doing such a good job."

"You were. I wasn't sure until you just told me."

"And you're...okay with it." The baffled expression on Nick's face makes him want to laugh.

"You're not his supervisor. There's no conflict of interest. And it's not any of my business." All of which is true enough, but that's not why he hasn't said anything, and Nick is smart enough to know that.

"Well, no," he says slowly, "but that's never really stopped you before, has it?"

"No," Gil agrees. "It hasn't."

He doesn't offer anything else. Maybe he should explain about Sara, and how hypocritical it would be to get on Nick's case, but he doesn't.

Nick gives him another perplexed look, but he doesn't seem disposed to press the matter. With his hands stuffed in his pockets and his cheeks flushed, he looks like an oversized kid, and Gil decides to take pity on him.

"Go home, Nick," he says, as kindly as he can. "Get some rest."

"Right," Nick says. For a moment it looks like he's going to say something else, but then he just shakes his head. Gil watches him shoulder his backpack and head out of the room, smiling.

* * *

It might have gone on like that indefinitely, but then Sara is kidnapped. And afterward things don't really go back to normal. It's not just the two of them, either--the whole team is thrown off, and Sara glides around the labs like a short-tempered ghost.

They're at the diner. Gil has allowed himself to be dragged out of his office for steak and eggs and bad coffee more for Sara's sake than for any other reason, and he's not paying any particular attention to Nick or Greg.

So he hardly even notices when Nick brushes his knuckles against the back of Greg's hand, then pulls back as though he's just remembered where he is. He's done the same thing himself, often enough, with Sara; it can be easy to forget sometimes and he's watched the two of them dance around each other long enough that it seems normal. Catherine and Warrick don't say anything, either, but Sara suddenly slams both hands down on the table hard enough to rattle the china.

All five of them start and stare at her, but she's glaring at Nick.

"That's it," she announces. "I'm sick of this."

Nick blinks at her. "Uh, Sara--"

"Shut up." She points at him. "If I have to watch this anymore I'm going to scream. We all know about you two. We've known for years. So just--stop pretending, okay?"

For several seconds, the table is dead silent, and then Greg clears his throat, lips pressed together in an unsuccessful attempt to suppress a smile. He slants a sly glance at Nick. "I told you."

"I--but--" Nick blinks at Sara, then looks around the table. Catherine gives him an indulgent smile. Warrick leans back in his chair, arms folded, chuckling. Gil shrugs and spoons up a mouthful of runny eggs, and Nick finally ducks his head, gobsmacked expression giving way to laughter. "Oh, hell. I'm an idiot."

"I wasn't going to mention it," Greg mutters, but his smile is blinding when Nick reaches across, very deliberately, and takes his hand.


	5. Sleepover Party

It's a little before five in the afternoon, so Jim isn't surprised when Nick comes to the door in sweatpants and an old college t-shirt. Nick, on the other hand, looks startled to see him, and he stands in the door for several seconds before shaking his head suddenly. "Jim. Come on in."

Jim follows him in and shuts the door, and that's when he realizes that Sanders is sitting on the couch in zebra-print pajama pants, eating Froot Loops and watching the Discovery Channel. He squints at Jim, bleary-eyed, and makes a muffled greeting noise around a mouthful of cereal. Nick gives Jim an apologetic look and leads him into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"No. Thanks. Nick, I'm here about a case. We found a new lead on the Halstead robbery and with Catherine as overloaded as she has been--"

"There goes my night off." Nick sounds resigned rather than pissed, which means that he probably didn't have serious plans. That makes Jim feel a little better. They've been working a lot of doubles since Warrick was killed, and with Grissom gone too--well, Ray Langston is pretty bright, but he's not a CSI, not yet.

"Sorry. I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by and let you know. I was gonna call Sanders in early, too, but seeing as he's already here--"

"Mmph," Sanders says agreeably from the living room. Jim squints at him, then back at Nick.

"Slumber party?" he asks dryly.

Sanders finishes his cereal and wanders into the kitchen to deposit a bowl of pinkish, sugary milk in the sink. He smiles sleepily at Nick and Jim, opens the fridge, pulls out a carton of orange juice, and takes a long drink.

"Use a glass, man." Nick's voice is mild.

Sanders snorts and replaces the juice. "I'm going to find some clean clothes," he says around a yawn. "Since it seems I'm going in early." He wanders out again.

Smiling a little, Nick pulls two travel mugs out of the cupboard and fills them from the carafe on the counter. He glances back at Jim. "Had a few too many beers last night," he says. "He'll live."

"Sure." Jim peers into the darkened living room. There are, indeed, beer bottles and pizza boxes littering the coffee table, but something still seems off.

Jim knows he's a suspicious bastard; it's one of the things that makes him good at his job. He's not a CSI, but he's been at enough crime scenes to get an idea of what's going on just by looking at what's left behind.

There are no blankets on the couch. And Sanders was in his pajamas. Jim can't think of a single guy he knows who'd bring pajamas and a change of clothes with him to have a few beers with a buddy. Come to that, there's no overnight bag or backpack in sight. People don't normally drink from the container when they're in someone else's kitchen, either; though, considering that this is Sanders, Jim's willing to grant that one.

Nick puts creamer in both mugs of coffee, sugar in one, screws the lids on. Two cups. One for him, one for Sanders. The behavior of habit.

It's only when he turns around and gives Jim a funny look that Jim realizes he's staring with his mouth open. Nick doesn't flush or look away or start stammering excuses. He has to know what Jim is thinking, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

Jim shuts his mouth, opens it again, hesitates. Before he can think of something to say, Sanders comes into the living room, dressed, with his hair in disarray and a pair of boots in one hand. "What's my sentence for tonight?" he asks brightly.

"You're with Catherine and Ray," Jim says, still looking at Nick, who raises his eyebrows, all but daring him to ask the question. Cocky, almost. Jim wouldn't have thought it of him, but it looks like there's a lot of things he didn't know about Nick Stokes. "I've got to be heading out," he says at last. "Mind if I use your bathroom?"

Nick grins suddenly and jerks a thumb at the hallway on the other side of the door. "Right through there."

"Great."

He doesn't really need to piss, but he does anyway, zips, flushes, looks around. Two toothbrushes on the sink. A pair of plaid boxers and a Marilyn Manson t-shirt kicked into a corner.

In the kitchen, he hears Sanders laugh suddenly.

"...think you just outed us to Brass," Nick is saying.

"Not like it's a big secret. You mean he didn't know?"

"Don't believe he did. Get your shoes off the counter, that's disgusting."

A clatter. "God, you're such a woman."

Something about Nick's answering chuckle makes Jim turn ten shades of red and he hastily turns the faucet on to drown out the rest of the conversation.

They're standing several feet apart when he comes back into the kitchen, relaxed and grinning. Sanders has a smear of coffee grinds across one cheek. Jim considers several possible comments, but all he really wants to get the hell out of there before he starts asking questions he doesn't actually want to know the answers to.

"See you at work," he says, and flees.

* * *

He wants to let it go. He really does. He's always liked Nick, enjoyed working with him. The man is easygoing, respectful, not inclined to make too many stupid mistakes in the field. And Sanders might be a pain in the ass, but he's basically a good kid. Jim doesn't have the first clue how to handle this, and he finds himself sitting at his desk in the dark, scrolling through personnel files. He doesn't even know what he's looking for. Complaints, favoritism, spats that might have interfered with work (lover's quarrels, if it wasn't such a bizarre phrase to use in conjunction with Nick Stokes and Greg Sanders). There's nothing.

He does discover that Sanders' listed address is an apartment off the Strip, but he's got a strong feeling that if he goes over there and talks the building super into letting him in, he's going to find nothing but bare walls and an empty fridge. A front. He wouldn't have expected Sanders to have that kind of foresight.

"You're going to ruin your eyes like that." Startled, he spins and almost falls out of his chair. Catherine leans around the door, blonde hair falling into her eyes, smirking. She flips the light switch. "Seriously, Jim."

He presses a hand over his heart, although it's mostly for show. "You trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Is it working?" She grins. Even at forty-eight, she's a heartbreaker. "No, I just wanted to let you know that we found the body. Robbins is taking it apart now."

"Good. That's good." He must sound as distracted as he feels, because her brow furrows and she steps inside, shutting the door behind her.

"Jim, are you okay?"

"I--" He hesitates for a long moment, then shrugs. Hell with it. He's nowhere near wrapping his head around this on his own, and Catherine knows how to be discreet. "I stopped by Nick's place earlier to tell him to come in."

"And?"

"Sanders was there. With him."

She raises one manicured brow. "So?"

"Catherine, don't tell me you don't know about this."

He can see her considering, as clearly as if her thoughts are printed across her face. Finally, she sighs. "Okay. I know about it. So what?"

"So what?"

"So what." She sits down across from him, hands on his desk. "Jim, it's kind of an open secret around the labs. Everybody knows. Nobody talks about it, but everybody knows."

_Except me._

"Look, I'm not judging or anything," he says, frustrated. "It's perfectly legal, this isn't the military, I get that. But if it's going to compromise their working relationship..."

"If it hasn't yet," Catherine says tartly, "then I doubt it will."

Something about her tone gives him pause. "How long?"

"Five years. That I know of. Grissom thought it might be longer, but he's a closet romantic."

Jim knows his mouth's hanging open, but he can't, at the moment, bring himself to care. Five _years?_

And then things begin to fall into place, little things he's seen, moments, comments, all unremarkable on their own. Evidence without context, as Grissom would say. But given the context--

God, and he thought it was bad finding out about Grissom and Sara. "Is everyone in your lab involved in some kind of secret affair?"

She laughs. "Not that I know of. Look--are you going to give them trouble about this? Because--"

Jim looks back at his computer. Nick Stokes, CSI-03. Former Dallas police officer. Going on thirteen years with the Vegas crime lab. Greg Sanders. Boy-genius DNA tech turned CSI. Nine years with the lab.

He glances up. Catherine is still staring at him. "You should tell Sanders to update his contact information," he says at last. "Not much use in having the files if they're not up to date. Tell him I said so."

Her face softens into a genuine smile. God, she's a beautiful woman. "I will."

* * *

A/N: Finished! I might add a few short pieces about Riley and Ray, but for now, this is it. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.


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